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GLEN AFFRIC

Not twisty or unexpected, but tense—and with a surprising sweetness in the relationship between the brothers.

The American debut from French writer Giebel is a solid if straight-ahead suspense novel about two brothers whom gross injustice seeks out again and again.

Léonard (his name a wink to Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men) is a large, powerful, sweet-tempered teen who’s relentlessly bullied and taken advantage of because of certain intellectual disabilities. Léonard was a foundling, discovered battered and bruised in a ditch and taken in at age 5 by kind, heartbroken Mona. The boy’s favorite keepsake is a postcard from Glen Affric, Scotland, where he’s been led to believe his brother, Jorge, Mona’s beloved elder son, lives. But Glen Affric is a cover story. Jorge has been convicted of two murders he didn’t commit, and for 16 years he’s been in prison, a status that has cemented the family’s status as shunned and despised outsiders in their town. On the day when Jorge is paroled, Léonard lands in prison himself, briefly but disastrously, after—not knowing his strength—he defends himself too vigorously and injures his tormentors. Léonard emerges from lockup psychologically and physically wounded, and he’s bewildered and upset to learn where Jorge has been. But the vulnerable brothers soon grow close, and as the horrors and injustices continue to mount, they grow ever closer. Jorge is on parole, under constant threat of being returned to prison if he loses his job or responds to the townspeople’s taunts, abuses, provocations. Framed for theft and fired once, he takes on lucrative illicit work and acquires, just in case, a bug-out bag, which he and Léonard bury in the backyard. The reader knows it cannot stay buried for long. Sure enough, Jorge is framed for another murder—of the woman he loves, a restaurateur he felt forced to break up with in order to spare her business and her reputation. The novel, a bit slow to launch, picks up major momentum around its midpoint, when the brothers kidnap a somewhat sympathetic cop and go on the run. The book, and the brothers, are headed to a destination and a denouement that seem predetermined, but Giebel delivers them and us to the rendezvous with some panache.

Not twisty or unexpected, but tense—and with a surprising sweetness in the relationship between the brothers.

Pub Date: Oct. 29, 2024

ISBN: 9780063393929

Page Count: 720

Publisher: HarperVia

Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2024

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2024

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THE WOMEN

A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.

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A young woman’s experience as a nurse in Vietnam casts a deep shadow over her life.

When we learn that the farewell party in the opening scene is for Frances “Frankie” McGrath’s older brother—“a golden boy, a wild child who could make the hardest heart soften”—who is leaving to serve in Vietnam in 1966, we feel pretty certain that poor Finley McGrath is marked for death. Still, it’s a surprise when the fateful doorbell rings less than 20 pages later. His death inspires his sister to enlist as an Army nurse, and this turn of events is just the beginning of a roller coaster of a plot that’s impressive and engrossing if at times a bit formulaic. Hannah renders the experiences of the young women who served in Vietnam in all-encompassing detail. The first half of the book, set in gore-drenched hospital wards, mildewed dorm rooms, and boozy officers’ clubs, is an exciting read, tracking the transformation of virginal, uptight Frankie into a crack surgical nurse and woman of the world. Her tensely platonic romance with a married surgeon ends when his broken, unbreathing body is airlifted out by helicopter; she throws her pent-up passion into a wild affair with a soldier who happens to be her dead brother’s best friend. In the second part of the book, after the war, Frankie seems to experience every possible bad break. A drawback of the story is that none of the secondary characters in her life are fully three-dimensional: Her dismissive, chauvinistic father and tight-lipped, pill-popping mother, her fellow nurses, and her various love interests are more plot devices than people. You’ll wish you could have gone to Vegas and placed a bet on the ending—while it’s against all the odds, you’ll see it coming from a mile away.

A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.

Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024

ISBN: 9781250178633

Page Count: 480

Publisher: St. Martin's

Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2023

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2023

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THE THINGS WE DO FOR LOVE

Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.

Life lessons.

Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.

Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.

Pub Date: July 1, 2004

ISBN: 0-345-46750-7

Page Count: 400

Publisher: Ballantine

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004

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